Red Robin & Spoiler special
by Ladykiaracat
Summary: A one-shot of my favorite pairing, it's my first time writing it and I was trying for a different approach at Stephanie, vaguely based on new 52 but without jerk!Tim, please give it a shot. Tim is surprised by Stephanie in more ways than one.


"Come back here you little-"– I end the goons pointless sentence with a knock to his head, I almost respond with a _Sleep tight you idiot!_ Obviously I'm spending too much time with Jason.

I look over my shoulder to the boy behind me, he was still pretty shaken up but he wasn't as scared as when the guys were surrounding him, I'd like to ignore what they were planning to do with the boy who had to be about 8 years old and clearly wasn't going to forget this night easily, at least it won't give him nightmares … That's Gotham for you.

"Hey you okay?" – He looks at me with his mouth open with a mix of embarrassment, fear and admiration, the first one was not the typical response, my brain automatically searches for an answer.

I crouch before him, hide my weapons and give him a small but, hopefully, reassuring.

"I'm Red Robin, it's okay now, if there's something you want to say …"

He looks startled but I can see he's thinking about his answer, thankfully I read him correctly.

"They were after the girl in purple"- Girl in purple? Was it Duela? Proxy? Violet? Spoiler? – "She's really nice" – okay not Duela nor Violet and this doesn't seem like Proxy's neighborhood anyway – "She helps around and has a really nice voice, she said that if something or someone bad came around to use the plans"- obviously this purple girl is a masked vigilante and came prepared, who could she be? The M.O doesn't quite fit with the info I got on the suspects

"Can you tell me more about those plans?"

"I guess…" – he gives me a paper with lots of colors and for a few seconds I think he's either given me the wrong one or trying to fool me, the supposed plan looked like the instructions of a board game however they were applied to real life, it was very impressive. I need to find who she is.

"Thank you" – I say as a give him the colorful sheet back – "The girl, is she blond?"

The boy's eyes widen and before he can answer I've already gotten an answer.

"What's your name?"

"Arthur" – quite ironic

"Well Arthur, you were very brave and I'm very grateful for your cooperation, don't worry about the girl she's a friend of mine, I won't hurt her" – not exactly true but close enough – "go home now, you don't want to worry more your family now do you?"

With a firm nod and a small smirk, he leaves, running.

So Stephanie Brown had been busy apparently, she is still pretty much a mystery to me, despite being close to her father and mother she never joined them, instead of running away when her mother left or when her father died she stayed and fought and even though she had no training she survived both the Gotham streets and the hired killers Arthur Brown hired to murder her.

It was definitely horrible what she's been through, she lost her family, her friend, her house and her grasp on a normal life but that didn't seem to break her in the slightest, in fact Harper commented with me, once, that when Stephanie came to live with her and her brother she was expecting her to cry and whine about everything she had been through, to react like a spoiled child who for the first time had to live amongst the plebeians, to harper's surprise it didn't happen, Stephanie didn't want anyone consoling her, apparently, the only thing she saw in Steph was anger and determination, Harper said it was a good sign but that she was still too much of a princess for her taste while I didn't really know what to make of it because, to be honest, Stephanie has always been harder to figure out than the rest.

I remember Bruce saying that she had the potential for greatness and that it was a shame that her father was wasting money and valuable time in his Cluemaster plans, when I joked that maybe we should make her one of us he responded with _She's a variable not even I can control._

Seeing that I had free time patrolling the Dark City that we boldly and ridiculously call home, I decided to look for Spoiler which led to the conclusion that I didn't know where to look for her and that was rare, I developed the need to know where all the bats were, unfortunately she was very new and not really into the bats apparently.

However, I decide to use the little information I got from her, see if it could give me at least a place to start my search. I came down to the conclusion that she was probably helping the poor and taking down the random mugger or rapist not risking it too much and also probably close to the places her father had attacked.

After visiting the many places the Cluemaster had destroyed and its surroundings, I find her helping a little girl on the neighborhood near the Clocktower, which her father had used to cause a mayhem, charming right?

Before I could get close to her or sign her that I was coming just for a talk, she spotted me, glared and ran away pretty fast, unfortunately for her I was bored tonight and I've been missing this type of chases.

Spoiler, surprisingly, was fast and graceful, she used brute force to get around while I used technique however she did not look deadly, there was anger on her movements but joy too, she enjoys the adrenaline just like we do.

I must admit what impresses me the most is her ability to make it look so casual when I can tell for sure that she's having a hard time keeping the speed up, she doesn't make gravity disappear like Dick does, she doesn't move like an unstoppable force like Jason does, she doesn't move like she's calculating her moves like Bruce, Damian and me, but she doesn't stop to think twice, she doesn't look back or lets a closed door or window be a problem for her.

She has a lot of potential.

Stephanie was different, she wasn't a performer, a warrior, an assassin nor a detective, and by each second that passes and each piece that falls to its place in my head, I can tell that she's the one making the questions.

She was using everything that was at her disposal to free her way, at least that was what I thought at first, but even when the way was clear she was changing something, grabbing, pulling, kicking, what was the endgame? I couldn't tell, yet.

I'm a detective I solve problems, real life, human sized riddles, she wasn't, no, she was making a puzzle just like her father but in a way so much more beautiful and fascinating.

She somehow made the city she runs through a magnificent gigantic game, each rooftop, was a test, each room she ran into was a message

In some rooftops I had to choose whether I would follow her or save the person that was in trouble, sometimes there were 2 or more people to save, fortunately I had technology to help me, sometimes she would clash into an old warehouse that had meaning to the bat-family, sometimes she would crash a mob meeting, sometimes she would pass through places that somehow were important to me even if I don't remember ever being there, sometimes she would lock the door behind her and I needed to find a way to find her again and somehow looking at my surroundings I could find clues, it was a race against time and I didn't knew the timer or where would it end, she moved with a pattern that changed accordingly to another pattern and every time I was close to end it, she would change it again.

Somehow I learnt a lot about her, I learned that she loves music and knows how to play the piano, I also know that she doesn't anymore, I learned that she loves waffles and cheesy romantic movies, comedies and horror films, even though they scare her.

I barely got a good look at her tonight, I remember from when I met her, slightly wavy blonde hair, blue eyes, freckles and a kind smile, she looked lovely and very pretty, nothing like her facebook pictures, but I must admit right now she looks very beautiful despite only catching a glance o her swirling eggplant cape as she dances to the next rooftop and her blue electric eyes that dared me to follow her.

Well, I couldn't leave this puzzle undone, not when the prize was both a mystery and perfect.


End file.
